Everyone get out your crystal balls.
I was just looking through the Innova disc pages and was trying to quess what the next few discs would be in terms of speed, turn, glide, and fade.
Anyone care to quess?
Also, what would you want to see?

Personally,
I would like to see a new fairway driver available in the champion plastic. Maybe something like speed 6, turn -1, glide 4, fade +2

i highly doubt another fairway driver will ever be designed. discs that aren't on par distancewise with whatever is current are always doomed to failure unless they serve a specific purpose, e.g. turnover disc, etc.

a great example of this failure is the storm. one of discraft's worst selling discs. basically, there are too many older school discs that could easily be brought back into that realm.

the disc you just described is the dx gazelle in 165-168g.

as for how innova designs, a lot of it is based on theory and then they see what they come up with. e.g. tweak the angles on a starfire with the theory of increasing/decreasing <blank> = new disc.

i would enjoy seeing more discs kinda like the teebird but that isn't the way they are really heading. champion plastic overstability has been one of the main sources of needing to develop super easy to throw, understable discs.

You have to wonder when all these bright ideas will run out. Since I've started playing again (after 10+ years away from the game) I've tried alot of the new discs and plastic. With the exception of a handful of discs that I really like (Pro Wraith, Wolf, SS Wixzard) most of them aren't doing anything that my old stock can't do. The biggest improvement I've seen is in the distance driver class. There are definitlly some faster/longer discs around now then back in '91. But not by all that much really.

I'm sure they'll come up with something tantilizing to part us with our money. It's their job!

my thoughts are similar. seems like they often move past a generation before they really finish out the current one. the manufacturers also seem to trade back and forth between the true innovations.

the launch of the small-diameter glider era started w/ the cyclone in 1993 (replaced the viper era). innova responded with the gazelle but didn't really outdo the cyclone until the eagle in 1998.

in the meantime circa 1996, innova developed the polaris ls for millennium, which was the first smooth lipped disc during this era but it didn't really outperform its contemporaries by a wide margin (cheetah, gazelle, cyclone). this idea was taken to the next level by discraft with the XL. the leopard was seemingly based off of the XL and launched the special edition teebird (TL).
the next breakthrough in this area was the valkyrie (2000), which is the predecessor to the modern driver.

a lot of the advancements recently have been in the putter/midrange market.

the large diameter roc has been around sine like 1989 (w/ the ontarios and ranchos taking place later, but still a roc). the buzzz/wasp (2002/03) were an attempt to replace the roc and what was the result was a disc that flew like a broken in roc right out of the box (buzzz).

similarly, the aviar was the standard for many years, w/ the big bead being popular from ~1991-2000 or so. the wizard took this to the next level by being slightly more stable and longer.

i guess it's a balance... moving forward with new concepts as well as improving upon previously existing concepts.

from a business standpoint, drivers will generally move forward faster than they improve (maybe 1 or 2 upgrades per generation) whereas mids and putters can be improved forever.

the viking is an example of this... had the viking come out in late 2000 or anytime in 2001, it likely would have been the best selling disc of this era. people were asking for a slightly more stable valkyrie for years and it didn't arrive until AFTER the beast, wildcat, orc, crush era was in full swing and its sales have always been disappointing.

It seems like flight characteristics are pretty much covered. It seems the only way to REALLY make strides in flight characteristics would be what is happening now...going further.

My prediction and wish for new discs would have to be improvements in how a disc feels in the hand. Many people will disagree with me on this, but I love the way the Quarter K feels in my hand. As a result of this, I feel much more consistant with this disc which is why it has replaced the Beast in my bag. It's not any longer than other drivers (IMHO), it doesn't really fly any differently, but the feel of the disc is what makes this one valuable.

If someone could make a Cobra-like disc that doesn't have such a sharp lip, I'd love it.

I don't need a disc to do fly/roll differently, I just need flights that I'm getting now with a more comfortable, predictable release.

OK, one more I'd like to see, but would go against the current disc standards of accessablility to anyone. How 'bout custom fit putters? These could be molded to the hand for an absolutely perfect fit. Like a bowling ball drilled specifically for your hand or ski boots molded specifically for your feet, a custom fit putter could prove to improve accuracy.

oddly enough, they haven't found a way to make truly high speed stable drivers and still maintain glide with the newer designs. granted, it takes people with 500' of golf D power to really show which discs are truly high speed stable and which ones aren't... i've watched someone flip a flick from a 60 deg hyzer and a clean release... guy just has a canon. the pred, x2, firebird, teebird etc. are truly stable, but bordering on archaeic now compared to the newest stuff.

i personally would like a longer disc with a cyclone/gazelle flight.

as for the putter idea, it wouldn't fly with the 1500 min needed for approval. the juju is probably the closest disc out there that allows for some customization.

Dave Dunipace claimed on the PDGA website that 2 new discs released in star and DX plastic would be the Goblin, a modified aero and coyote cross, which is to be the new EDGE main staple disc, and the new Firebird replacement which is kinda like a monster and wraith. it will be an 11, 5, 0, 4 in ratings while he said that the 4 might be a little high and need some tweaking.

personally, i think innovations in the types of plastics the companies use are going to be a bigger deal once people get burnt out on all the different drivers. something that grips the air the way low grade plastic does, but with more durability. in my crazy world i see companies purposefully creating very small pores on the plastic surface... through some kind of process (blasting with air, having a plastic that dries with pores). air pockets around the disc will be better as a result.
discs may not get too much faster etc... but they can fly better still. a disc that is more high speed stable with less fade = a straighter big D driver. maybe even a disc that is high speed stable and low speed understable... which seems impossible, but who knows what crazy physicists are capable of?

best way to break in the disc, which you essentially just want minor, read almost cosmetic, surface scratches is to throw it into a willow tree. this allows the smaller branches the tree posses to act like a small barrage of multiple throws over a longer time.

I spent about an hour (not consecutive, i have ADD) and the disc was up to par with my then pro driver i had for about a month. small shrubs, or thin grow in the woods work just as good. My buddy prefers thorn bushes, but im not that dumb.

Anyway, dont be like some people i know and use sandpaper. Be a man and either play the rounds, or practice a shot that puts the disc in danger of getting beat up.